I’ve always enjoyed the Andover Townsman, but this editorial has me scratching my head.

Not stressing over a high-stakes college admissions test is to a high school junior what sleeping late is to a Saturday morning. If the apparent demise of SAT and ACT scores as benchmarks of young human potential were reduced to an analogy once favored by the authors of those exams, maybe it would look something like that.

Or maybe not. The point is it doesn’t matter anymore, now that colleges and universities are changing their admissions rules so that the scores are optional or not considered at all. For teenagers assembling college applications, whether the school of their dreams wants them as much as they want it now is less likely to be determined by mastery of algebra, logic problems and archaic vocabulary.

Then what does determine admission?

I get it, partly: the SAT, like almost all of the schools, is completely debased and nearly useless. Yet and still, as a recent California study demonstrated, it is still one of the best measures of how well a student may perform in college (what’s left of the colleges) – better than (worthless) HS grades even. Of course, those are just facts. Facts used to be viewed with logic – which, these days, is a problem.

“Pretty soon, all you’ll need to get into college is a pencil. Got a pencil? Get the fuck in there, it’s physics.” – George (Lord, we miss him) Carlin.